This thesis explores the embodied topography of Mount Athos, emphasizing the conditions of liminality – the nature of different kinds of boundaries and intermediate zones within it. Mount Athos is a valuable case study of sacred topography, as it is one of the largest monastic communities and an important pilgrimage destination. Its phenomenological examination in this study highlights the importance of embodiment in the experience of religious places advocating also for a deeper understanding of the boundaries in it. The thesis seeks to convey a more primary insight into the phenomena found there, examining also how ritual and pre-reflective embodied movements explore the topography in a meaningful way. Combining elements of different disciplines (philosophy, theology, anthropology, and architectural history and theory) with primary sources from archives and fieldwork, the thesis constitutes an original contribution to both Athonian studies and sacred topography scholarship. By focusing on the spatial, temporal and aural boundaries and intermediate zones as perceptual phenomena of an embodied topography, it suggests an alternative to the usual art-historical, objectifying examination of the case study. Liminality refers to the intermediate zones between two or more components of a sacred place. It allows the reciprocal communication between them, carrying the character of both departure and return. In using liminality as a focus of investigation, the thesis provides a new understanding of the way religious places are interconnected through cyclical rituals, the strangers’ travel and silent meditation. Following the archetype of the journey, these movements are also studied according to their particular power to “map” places in a more primary way than the modern cartographic method. Starting from the periphery of Athos, the study presents a variety of in-between zones, the passage through which contributes to the sensual realization of a multi-layered meaningful topography. Annual pilgrimages to the peak of the mountain, silent meditation in isolated caves, wandering asceticism and walking along the footpaths provide different ways to narrate the natural landscape of the peninsula. Moreover, ritual choreographies being inscribed in the courtyard and church of a coenobitic monastery, meals and death services ritually perform the place. Through their investigation, this study illuminates important aspects of the topography, such as its multi-sensual aural environment in which silence plays a key role. The analysis concludes that the different liminal zones of Mount Athos are always undergoing a condition of penetration, alteration, and even violation, allowing the integrity of the topography to be enacted.

Cette thèse a pour objet les images narratives de la Passion du Christ dans les peintures murales tardobyzantines, leur place et leur fonctionnement dans l’espace rituel dont elles constituent le décor. Développé en dessous des images du Dodekaorton, il a une forme et une place très particulières : faisant le tour de la nef et intégrant généralement le sanctuaire dans son parcours, il participe de la construction de l’espace cultuel. Cette approche des images a montré que la forme narrative donnée à ces cycles composant les décors pariétaux, loin d’être fortuite, est porteuse de sens et de discours. Décorant d’abord des fondations byzantines prestigieuses à la fin du XIIIe siècle, le motif ne tarde pas à apparaître dans les églises serbes peintes dans l’entourage du Kralj Milutin, avant de devenir courant dans des monuments plus modestes. Le cycle est envisagé dans sa globalité et non image par image, à l’aide des outils traditionnels de l’iconographie mais aussi de la narratologie, ce qui a permis de mettre en évidence sa structure narrative. Dans une troisième partie, le fonctionnement liturgique du cycle est détaillé, révélant un discours eucharistique et mystagogique qui n’est pas tant superposé au récit en images, qu’il n’est au contraire produit par lui. / This doctoral thesis addresses the narrative images of the Passion of Christ in Late Byzantine mural paintings, their place and their ritual function. This cycle, which takes place under the Dodekaorton, has a clear sequence. Going around the nave and generally passing through the sanctuary space, it participated in the construction of the worship space. A study of the images used shows that such the narrative form given to these cycles, far from being accidental, is a carrier of meaning and discourse. Firstly decorating prestigious Byzantine foundations in the late thirteenth century, this kind cycle soon appeared in Serbian churches painted in the Kralj Milutin’s milieu and then became common in more modest monuments. In this study, the cycle is considered as a whole, using the traditional tools of iconography but also narratology, which helped to highlight its narrative structure. At last, the liturgical function of the cycle is explored, revealing a Eucharistic and mystagogic discours produced by the narrative.